NOTE: New Light Faith Ministries and Barry Johnson Ministries, founded by brothers Rodney V. Johnson and Barry O. Johnson, respectively, are partnering to offer Bible studies for Christians who are seeking to grow in their relationship with Jesus. This is a Bible study lesson, not a sermon. The Bible studies teach foundational truth that are designed to challenge, encourage and, most importantly, flame the fire of hunger in the Christian who wants to learn more about who they have become in Christ Jesus. The Bible studies you find on this site contain the written version of the lesson. However, these lessons also include a video and an audio file of the study, a PDF version of the lesson and a sheet for note taking. If you would like any of the additional resources for these studies, please email us at newlightfaithministries@gmail.com or bjteachingltr@gmail.com for more information or contact us at the email provided on both of our Sermon Central pages. Be blessed.
Is God in Control Part 1
(Rev. Barry Johnson and Rev. Rodney Johnson)
Introduction
Several weeks ago a son stabbed his parents to death. In the aftermath of this tragedy, people wondered how God could allow something like this to happen. How could a good and righteous God not protect good parents from a son who desired to do them harm? Could our all-knowing God not have done something to either stop the son or protect the parents before this happened? Even after they were stabbed, couldn’t God have stopped them from actually dying? The general questions that are asked in situations like this are “Why did God allow this to happen?” Or “Why didn’t God do something to stop it?” Since that time, there have been several mass shootings that have left people wondering where was God when these shootings happened.
When hurricane Katrina, a category 5 hurricane hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama in 2005 causing over 1800 fatalities and $125 billion in damages, people said that God was punishing New Orleans (one of the hardest hit cites) for its sin. Some Christian leaders actually said that God was in control and that He was pouring out His judgment on the city for all of the sin the city is known for. If you believe this, then that would mean that those who were serving God faithfully without participating in the sin died or lost their possessions because God was “punishing” someone else for their sins and they were collateral damage. Does this make sense?
One last thought: How many funerals have you attended where the deceased was either very young or died at a young age due to a sickness, accident or some horrible way? When you attended the funerals, how many times did the minister say that “God called the person home”? Or “God needed a new angel.” Or “We might not understand but God had His reasons.” As you sat there contemplating what you had just heard, did you wonder why God allowed a baby to die or a young person to die from cancer? And why did He choose that way for the person to die? Couldn’t He have chosen a more humane way for the person to die – a way that didn’t require long-term suffering? Or, why did God choose that specific person versus all of the other “old” people who had lived their full lives if He needed a new angel? How can someone be comforted when they lose a loved one and are told that it was part of God’s master plan because He was in control? What kind of God plans for His servants to be killed for no good reason or to get sick with a deadly disease because it’s a part of a plan that we know nothing about and should just accept?
Why do people need to believe God is in control or that He allows things to happen? The issue of God being in control rarely or is never vocalized when good things happen; it’s only when bad things happen that we do not understand and therefore cannot explain it. When we say God is in control it’s our way of trying to explain or make sense of something that we don’t understand. We say things like “God has His reasons.” Or “We don’t always understand God’s ways.” Or “We just have to trust that this was God’s will.” Or “God is using this to teach us a lesson.”
The theology surrounding God being in control is that He controls everything that happens and nothing happens without His permission. But is this true? Is God truly in control in the way that we say He is? Does everything that happen do so because He has signed off on it or He has given His expressed permission for it to happen? Is everything truly a part of His plans and we only think that we have free-will when, in actuality, we really don’t? So, how do we make sense of this?
In these lessons we will address questions like these and hopefully by the end you will know with certainty that there are things happening around us that, while God is not controlling them, He is actively involved in getting us through them. In these lessons we examine what God said from the beginning while also looking at passages that seem to teach that God is in control and that He allows Satan to do evil in this world based on what happened with Job, which we will discuss. Finally we will need an understanding of the role sin plays in the ungodly things we see happening in the world today. So we have a lot to cover in these lessons, so let’s get started. Barry, why don’t you get us started with the meaning of sovereignty.
The Meaning of Sovereignty
Rodney, when people say “God is in control,” they seem to believe that He is in control of everything, including the decisions that people make. Many also believe that He can stop people from exercising their free will to follow through on destructive decisions. Is it possible that part of the reason why people believe that God is in control is because most of the Church believes “sovereignty” and “control” are the same thing? In this first lesson, we’re going to examine both in some depth. We are going to use the Merriam-Webster Dictionary (Webster) as the primary tool for defining both sovereignty and control.
Webster defines sovereignty as,
§ Supreme power especially over a body politic (Webster defines “supreme” as the highest in rank or authority; ultimate, final as in “the supreme sacrifice”)
§ Freedom from external control: AUTONOMY
§ Controlling influence
Sovereignty is enjoyed by the one who is “sovereign” and we make this distinction for a reason. Webster defines sovereign as
§ Possessed of supreme power, as in a sovereign ruler
§ Unlimited in extent: ABSOLUTE
§ Enjoying autonomy: INDEPENDENT
§ Relating to, characteristic of, or befitting a supreme ruler: ROYAL as in a sovereign right
God is sovereign. No Bible believing Christian disputes that. He is THE supreme power. God answers to no one. He has complete, absolute, and unquestioned authority and autonomy everywhere – in the seen realm, our world, and in the unseen, the spirit realm. James 2:19 says “You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons (the unseen) believe – and tremble!” The Amplified Bible says it this way: “You believe that God is one; you do well. So do the demons believe and shudder [in terror and horror such as make a man’s hair stand on end and contract the surface of his skin]!” Ladies and gentlemen, this is the God, the sovereign One, and the supreme One that we are discussing in this lesson.
Barry I want to interject something here. It is our misunderstanding of the sovereignty of God which is behind our belief that everything that happens is because He either ordained it to be or approved of it happening. Understanding His sovereignty and lack of control of certain things will be key to understanding the world in its’ current state.
Rodney, I couldn’t agree with you more and before we look at the definition of the word “control”, let’s see some examples in Scripture where God exercised His sovereignty and an example where He did not exercise His sovereignty.
Let’s start with the very first verse of the Bible, Genesis 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Creation was a sovereign move by the One who has complete, absolute, supreme and unquestioned authority and autonomy to do so. Before God created them, the heavens and the earth did not exist. That’s the power of THE sovereign God! We see His sovereignty on display throughout this first chapter of Genesis. In the notes, we have underlined each of God’s sovereign acts that brought creation into existence. We’re going to read a lot of the first chapter of Genesis because it’s important to see the scope and magnitude of God’s power and authority as being the ONLY ONE who is sovereign.
Let’s begin at verse three.
(3) Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light….
(5) God called the light ‘day,’ and the darkness He called ‘night.’ And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
(6) Then God said, ‘Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters….
(8) And God called the expanse ‘heaven.’ And there was evening and morning, a second day.
(9) Then God said, ‘Let the waters below the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear’; and it was so.
(10) And God called the dry land ‘earth,’ and the gathering of the waters He called ‘seas’; and God saw that it was good.
(11) Then God said, ‘Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and the fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seeds in them’; and it was so….
(14) Then God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and they shall serve as signs and for seasons, and for days and years;
(15) and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth’; and it was so.
(16) Then God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also….
(20) Then God said, ‘Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.’
(21) And God created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good.
(22) And God blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth….
(24) Then God said, ‘Let the earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind’; and it was so.
(25) And God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God aw that it was good.” (Genesis 1:3, 5, 6, 8-11, 14, 16, 20, 22, 24, 25)
Here in Genesis 1, we see God sovereignly moving, primarily through His words, to bring into existence what we see today. Only God has the power and authority to bring into existence what we read here in Genesis. And ladies and gentlemen, I find it completely laughable when people say that God is at war with Satan. Seriously? God created him too and we see this in Ezekiel 28:15 – “You were blameless in your ways From the day you were created, Until unrighteousness was found in you.” God has no equal! Rodney is going to talk about how God exercised His sovereignty after he created man.
Barry I want to touch on what you said about people believing God is at war with Satan. People are confused about who is at war with whom. We are the ones in a battle and God is the One Who has already equipped us to win the battle. But, the decision to use what He has made available to us is totally ours. He can’t make us fight and He can’t make us use the tools to fight with and this brings us to how God exercised His sovereignty once He created man.
Rodney, let me say something before you get started. You have just succinctly identified how special we are. God has given us everything we need to deal with every situation we will ever face. We are God’s sons and daughters. Our Father created Satan and his demons and how Jesus interacted with them in the Gospels is how we can interact with them today!
Barry, we diminish ourselves when we think less of ourselves than what God thinks and we are going to see who He created us to be as we look at God’s sovereignty in Genesis. It’s important to see that He exercised His sovereignty differently with man than He did with every other part of creation. Let’s read verses 26 through 28.
(26) Then God said, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’
(27) God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
(28) God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’” (Genesis 1:26-28)
In these verses, we see God sovereignly “delegating” dominion of His creation to man to govern. The word “dominion” means to rule, to have dominion, to subjugate. It conveys the notion of exercising domain, whether legitimate or not, over those who are powerless or otherwise under one’s control. Here in Genesis, it identifies people’s God-ordained relationship to His creation. Ladies and gentlemen, this is extremely important. When God gave His creation to the husband and wife to rule, He delegated and thus limited His right to govern His creation to the authority the husband and wife would freely give to Him.
Nowhere in Scripture does it say that God removed man (the human race) from his position of dominion or his ruler-ship over creation – even after man sinned and rebelled against Him when he ignored His command to not eat of fruit from the forbidden tree. And we see an example of God not exercising His sovereignty to take back the dominion He had given to man in Genesis 18. This is the record of the Lord and two others visiting Abraham and Sarah before they go to Sodom and Gomorrah. It is in the Lord’s conversation with Abraham that man retained his dominion in God’s creation after Adam and Eve sinned against Him. Let’s pick the record up with verse 17.
(17) The LORD said, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do,
(18) since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed?…..
(21) I will go down now, and see if they (Sodom and Gomorrah) have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to Me; and if not, I will know.
(22) Then the men turned away from there and went toward Sodom, while Abraham was still standing before the LORD.
(23) Abraham came near and said, ‘Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
(24) Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are in it?
(25) Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?’
(26) So the LORD said, ‘If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare the whole place on their account.’” (Genesis 19:17-18, 21-26)
Barry, what jumped out to me as I read this is how Abraham appealed to God’s righteousness, to His righteous nature. And not only that, he also reminds God that He is the Judge who deals justly with His creation. These are points that we oftentimes miss in this Abraham’s appeal that Sodom and Gomorrah be spared. We know the story. Abraham appeals to the Lord again and again until he finally asks salvation for Sodom and Gomorrah if only ten righteous people are found in the city. The Lord agrees. Now, why would the Lord make Abraham privy to His plan to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? He knew Abraham would use his authority to intercede for that wicked place – and the Lord wanted Him to.
In Ezekiel 18:23 we see God’s heart for the wicked. The Lord asks “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die?’ says the Lord God, “and not that he should turn from his ways and live?” Of course, the answer is “no” otherwise He would not have asked the question.
Barry, we also see this in First Timothy 2:4. In talking about God’s desire for the sinner, Paul writes “Who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” In Ezekiel 22, the Lord is ready to pass judgment on the children of Israel because of their sins against Him. But look at what He does. “So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.” (Ezekiel 22:30) God gave man dominion over His creation, over the earth, and because of that He has obligated Himself to seek out people who understand His heart and what He truly wants to see happen who are willing to say “Lord, please don’t do this. Please spare them.” Is this not the call Christians have today? Are we not supposed to stand in the gap for those who don’t know God by praying that they will have an opportunity to choose salvation or not choose it?
God sovereignly made a decision that requires Him to “bring us in on such conversations.” We are even encouraged to pray that His will is done on earth as it is done in heaven in the Lord’s Prayer. Luke 11:1-2 records the following: (1) Now it came to pass, as He was praying in a certain place, when He ceased, that one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. (2) So He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven….” God cannot sovereignly force His will on the creation that He has given to man to rule. He needs man to partner with Him to bring His will to pass on earth. Barry, now tell why sovereignty is not the same as control.
The Meaning of Control
Rodney, again, we’re going to refer to Webster, which defines “control” as meaning:
§ To exercise restraining or directing influence over: REGULATE, as in ‘“control one’s anger”
§ To have power over: RULE, as in “A single company controls the industry”
§ To reduce the incidence or severity of especially to innocuous levels, as in “control an insect population” or “control a disease”
Now, based on what we have learned about God’s sovereignty and how He shared it with man in Genesis 1 and the definition of the word “control”, is it possible that God may not be in control the way we have been taught to believe that He is? The person who is in “control” has the ability and freedom to choose to act or not choose to act. When God sovereignly gave man dominion over His creation, He sovereignly relinquished His ability to control what man does with His creation and in His creation. Remember how Abraham referred to God as righteous and just? If He were to usurp man’s authority on earth, He would not be righteous or just. God is righteous and just because He gave His Word to man and has refused to change His mind because of the way man’s ungodly behavior towards Him. And that’s the real point here: everyday people are making decisions with or without external input because they are in control of their lives and no one else.
Assigning control to God, particularly when bad things happen, means that the person who actually commits the wrong – that person’s responsibility is minimal. It reduces the person’s accountability for their actions/decisions and the actions/decisions of others.
Some of you may be thinking that God was in control when He caused the flood and destroyed the tower of Babel. If you are thinking this then you would be correct that God took action because of the choices man was making. But look at what He did. With the flood He saved a righteous family because had He not done that and wiped out the human race, He would have voided His word in Genesis 3:15 when he told Satan, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise Him on the heel.” Had God wiped out all of man in the flood, then all of man would have died without having the opportunity for forgiveness that only comes through Jesus Christ. And, if you recall, because He started over with Noah and his family, all of the language was the same. Because of this, it was easy for man to communicate and devise ways to sin. Nothing that they could imagine was off limits. So God chose to do something within His control without overriding man’s freewill.
Genesis 11:5-7 records the following:
(5) The LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
(6) The LORD said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
(7) Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another's speech.’”
When God confused the language, He did not stop man from communicating. They would just have to work harder with those who did not speak their language. This act did not override man’s ability to choose or his will and God did not control the aftermath. And neither did any one lose their life.
In the situation with the flood and the tower of Babel, if God was in control then all of the sin that was present was because He desired for it to be there and if that was the case He would not have taken the actions that He did. Barry do you have any final comments before I pray? Rodney, when we understand the difference between being all powerful and having no equal, which is sovereignty, and being able to do something because you can, which is control, then we gain a better understanding that a righteous and just God, who can do anything He pleases, will not take from us the control to make free will choices – no matter how much they may break His heart
Amen. In part two we will begin examining Scriptures that are used to justify the belief that God is controlling everything. Let’s pray.
